“That may pass. If you should slight me now, I must bear it. Even though you should deliberately tell me that you cannot love me, I must bear that. But with such a load of love as I have at my heart, it must be told to you. Day and night it covers me from head to foot. I can think of nothing else. I dream that I have your hand in mine, but when I wake I think it can never be so.”
There was an instinct with her at the moment to let her fingers glide into his; but it was shown only by the gathering together of her two hands, so that no rebellious fingers straying from her in that direction might betray her. “If you have never loved me, never can love me, say so, and I will go away.” She should have spoken now, upon the instant; but she simply moved her foot upon the gravel and was silent. “That I should be punished might be right. If it could be possible that the punishment should extend to two, that could not be right.”
She did not want to punish him,—only to be brave herself. If to be obdurate would in truth make him unhappy, then would it be right that she should still be firm? It would be bad enough, after so many self-assurances, to succumb at the first word; but for his sake,—for his sake,—would it not be possible to bear even that? “If you never have loved me, and never can love me, say so, and I will go.” Even to herself, she had not pledged herself to lie. If he asked her to be his wife in the plain way, she could say that she would not. Then the way would be plain before her. But what reply was she to make in answer to such a question as this? Could she say that she had not loved him,—or did not love him? “Alice,” he said, putting his hand up to her arm.
“No!”
“Alice, can you not forgive me?”
“I have forgiven.”
“And will you not love me?”
She turned her face upon him with a purpose to frown, but the fulness of his eyes upon her was too much, and the frown gave way, and a tear came into her eye, and her lips trembled; and then she acknowledged to herself that her resolution had not been worth a straw to her.
It should be added that considerably before Alice’s wedding, both Sophia and Georgiana Wanless were married,—Sophia, in due order, as of course, to young Cobble, and Georgiana to Mr. Burmeston, the brewer. This, as the reader will remember, was altogether unexpected; but it was a great and guiding principle with Lady Wanless that the girls should not be taken out of their turns.
THE END.
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